CES 2014: A Closer Look at Alienware's Steam Machine

LAS VEGAS—Gaming consoles have never been a robust marketplace. Since the first couch-friendly 8-bit machines in the early 1980s, gamers' choices have remained remarkably limited. Many consoles have come and gone (RIP Dreamcast), and Ouya and Nvidia Shield have offered entertaining distractions, but for consoles that can do some heavy lifting, we've been left with only three options: Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony. Choose your horse wisely.

But Valve Corporation wants to change all that, but not necessarily in ways you expect. The gaming company behind classic series like Portal and Half-Life has no interest in a head-on collision with the very consoles that gave them initial success. Valve's introduction of SteamOS in September came with the clear goal to bring the platform's 65 million users a PC console for the living room, not to become an all-in-one console solution. At CES on Monday, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell unleashed 13 separate Steam Machine designs all by separate companies. And every box has something different to offer, whether in computing power, size, operating systems, style, or price.

But there was one that stood out among the rest. Not because it was flashy (it was actually pretty subdued considering present company) but because it seemed to understand the console market best. You need a product with high performance, a reasonable price, and overall, looks sexy, and Alienware's Steam Machine delivers on all points.

"One of the things that's been a hinderance for PC gamers moving to a big screen TV is it's not intuitive," says Bryan Dezayas, global marketing director for Alienware. "The thing with SteamOS and the way it's being built, our system is going to be plug and play. It's going to be as easy as a console."

Alienware's hardware mimics consoles in more ways than just convenience. First, the Steam Machine will stream in native 1080p and will even support 4K depending on how much a game taxes the system. Its internals will make use of Intel processors and Nvidia graphics, though specs on the device are still being tweaked. Unlike some proposed Steam Machines, Alienware's console will only run SteamOS as others have opted to dual-boot Windows as well. Price is another similarity that Alienware promises it will share with its console brethren, remaining competitive around $400 or $500. This is where some Steam Machine concepts go their separate ways as other manufacturers deliver premium PC experiences (some approaching $5000 prices).

But being primarily a PC product has its advantages.

"The refresh schedule for consoles is five, six, or seven years," Dezayas says. "We'll becoming out with a refresh probably every year. So you'll get a graphics card refresh, a CPU refresh, and you'll just get more and more performance out of it...It gives you the freedom of a PC."

However, certain corners of PC gaming embody a do-it-yourself approach with power gamers hand selecting their specs and building their own gaming rigs. But for consoles, Alienware doesn't think that culture is transferable. "I don't believe anyone out there is going to be able to build a system with the same performance, form factor, acoustics, and thermals, at the same price point," Dezayas says. "We have fifteen years experience in PC gaming. That's what we live and breathe on a daily basis."

Alienware joined minds with Valve to come up with the console. With Valve still working on the Steam controller and creating more titles for the OS, the two gaming companies have made fruitful union. "We really look at these pieces also as hardware updates to Steam," says Valve's Greg Coomer. "Choice is a great thing, and allowing users to make a price point trade off and not worry about compatibility issues [is important]...we don't think that just because you're in the living room that you have to remove all choice from the equation."

From Newell's announcement last Monday and throughout CES, there isn't a sense of rivalry among these consoles. It's more like a feeling of brotherhood dedicated to a single purpose—let's finally bring some choice to the living room. "I was very happy to see so many different types of form factors on Monday night," Dezayas says. "It goes back to what Steam is trying to do. The PC is an open thing, you should be able to do what you want with it."

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